Gurulé Y-DNA Results

Genetic genealogy has in many cases answered a lot of questions and other times it has provoked new ones. Angela Lewis, who in my opinion is the most knowledgeable and lead authority on Gurulé genealogy has opened up a question as to whether or not the Gurulé progenitor, Santiago Gurulé and his wife Elena Gallegos had any legitimate male children. This leads to question, are contemporary Gurulé families truly carrying on the bloodline of Santiago Gurulé? The answer to this question is being investigated using genetic genealogy via testing living male descendants that carry the Gurulé surname. Currently the results for Gurulé samples are resulting into three distinct Haplogroups.

Haplogroup I1 (I-M253): Nordic (Northwestern European origin)

This group appears to be matching various surnames.

Haplogroup Q & Q1a3a: Native-American origin

Haplogroup R1b1: Western European origin

This group appears to be matching Martin Serrano Y-DNA sequence

The most prominent of the three groups is Haplogroup I1 (I-M253) with nine individuals with the Gurule surname matching this Y-DNA sequence. This Y-DNA sequence is also matching a slew of folks carrying various surnames and some of these surnames have multiple folks with the same surname matching. Some of the results with multiple surname matches in frequency are Espinosa (2), Martinez (3), Sanchez (2), Santistevan (2), Gallegos (2), and Garcia (7) just to name a few.

In genetic genealogy, the sharing of genealogies is critical for the validation of a given lineage because it allows for lineage comparison by mapping out the trail of those tested to their common paternal ancestor. In this case, without genealogical comparisons, an argument could be made that the Y-DNA sequence in question could be the progenitor lineage of any of the surnames mentioned above. Just because one surname has numerous matches does not tell us much. In such a case, without a genealogical comparison for those tested we do not know how many generations back they share a common ancestor. Knowing the common ancestor is a crucial data point for validating to a given point in time.

Taking this approach we have mapped out seven of the nine male Gurulés all tracing back to Antonio Gurulé, each with unique paper trails. The comparison between these lineages has proven the Y-DNA of Antonio Gurulé who was born 1703 and was a supposed son of Santiago Gurulé and Elena Gallegos. Although the true parentage of Antonio is in question, the seven male Gurulés matching can say without a doubt that they truly are direct male descendants of Antonio Gurulé and his wife and Antonia Quintana.

For more information on this subject and to view the chart that shows the Gurulé males that have tested and match the Haplogroup I1 (I-M253) Y-DNA sequence visit Grolet-Gurulé website at the following link. http://www.gurulefamily.org/resources/dna/

7 thoughts on “Gurulé Y-DNA Results”

This is true Joe but can we fully trust that she told the truth? I would like to believe so but we need all these folks matching to share to make comparisons. By creating the Gurulé chart we have shared from the Gurulé perspective now the other families need to step up. Here is what Angela has shared in regards to the Will of Elena “I declare that I was married and veiled with Santiago de Gurulé for the period of twelve years in which time we had and procreated one son who is named Antonio de Gurulé whom I declare as my legitimate heir.” According to this Antonio is legitimately Santiago’s son. So does this mean that we have defined the Gurulé Y-DNA code and all these families matching are truly Gurulé? TBD…hopefully.

There were Germanic and perhaps Nordic migrations into Spain. Hernandez, Gomez, and Rodriguez are all surnames of German origin. They have discovered runic inscriptions in Spain as well. http://www.gurulefamily.org This website claims gurule originally came from France. France had germanic migrations and it was also invaded by vikings. Italy has a significant amount of I1 as well. Both Spain and France are majority R1B though as is Ireland and England.

Patrick, the life of Jacques Grolet is covered in many sources. As you have seen, Angela Lewis’s, Grolet-Gurulé: Los Franceses de Nuevo Mexico, website, (www.gurulefamily.org) is a great source but also read, Robert S. Weddle, “La Salle’s Survivors,” Southwest Historical Quarterly, vol. 75 (April 1972), 414-433. The info merely shows that Jaques was a native of France but doesn’t tell us his origin beyond that. You are correct in that migrations of Germanic people can be found in the areas you mention. The Y-DNA of the Gurulé clan is matching some other New Mexico founding families so I am not convinced that this Y-DNA is a true representation of Jacques and that his son Antonio may not be his legitimate son. You can read more on this in our New Mexico Genealogist September 2016: Vol. 55, No. 3 “Gurulé Y-DNA:
Who Crossed the Borders? by Angela Lewis. This can be found for free download at https://www.nmgs.org/journal

Great blog Miguel, this touches on the question that I had also about the Gurule dna. I don’t know that it can ever be answered unless one were to dig up Santiago for a DNA sample. My maternal Grandmother was Gurule..we are family #3 and there is a bit of a dead end there with another Antonio Gurule and Teresa Salazar..I have extracted all the records to Jose Manuel 1730 in Belen and Maria Josefa Jojola…not realizing that Angela had already done that line…I met her after I had done the research, but it was a good second look. I could not make the jump beyond that and hopefully will be able to track it sometime this year. I am sure in the early Gurule research there was a lot of controversy on who was true “Gurule”…hard to find “true” anything in NM…except that we are “true New Mexicans” a beautiful blend.

Yvette, you have a great understanding of our history in that we are all a big no matter which lines are truly carrying the surname of the progenitor. In the Gurule case, we are collecting genealogies for Chavez folks that have tested and it appears that many of them go well back into the 1600s which may proves that Santiago did not father his son.